


Cat's Cradle

by Daelin



Series: Darcy Lewis Crossover Bingo [16]
Category: Batman (Movies - Nolan), Dark Knight Rises (2012), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Darcy Lewis Crossover Bingo, Gen, Sisters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-05
Updated: 2016-04-04
Packaged: 2018-05-31 08:27:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6463051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daelin/pseuds/Daelin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Darcy Kyle went into the orphanage at age four, all big blue eyes and wavy brown hair in pigtails that had been carefully braided by her sister. She clutched her sister’s hand even as the strange new environment threatened to overwhelm her. She wished she was back home with the cats and even daddy in a grumpy mood than face all this strangeness.</p><p>Selina Kyle went into the orphanage at age eight, her big brown eyes already worldly and her wavy brown hair pulled back into a simple ponytail. She guided her little sister along by the hand and resolved that she could be the only one to love Darcy as Mommy and Daddy should have.</p><p>So she did.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cat's Cradle

**Author's Note:**

> DLCB - Day 21 - #18 - Batman
> 
> Taking lots of liberties in this universe. For comic readers - I'm kind of taking Maggie Kyle and Helena Wayne and rolling them into a ball. 
> 
> For the rest of you, don't worry about it and hopefully just read on! :)

The neighbors would say it was a wonder Maria even had children, with her head in the clouds so often. They would accredit Brian for the children’s care, and when Maria took her life, they praised Brian for keeping the family together. They didn’t see that Maria, for all her flightiness, grounded Brian; without her, with two children to care for that looked like ghosts of his dead wife, he found his solace in the bottom of the bottle. This time, instead of Brian knocking on his neighbor’s door, asking if they could watch the girls while he talked to the police, it was the eldest girl, Selina, knocking on the door, in the rain, with her little sister tucked under a daisy-print umbrella. “Daddy’s dead,” she said without preamble. “And there’s no phone.  Can you call the police?”

Brian had passed out and never woken up three days prior. The girls got themselves ready for school, didn’t vary their routine, and had fed themselves cereal and peanut butter sandwiches. When the food ran out, and with the money in a bank with a card she didn’t know the PIN for, Selina had been out of options.

Darcy Kyle went into the orphanage at age four, all big blue eyes and wavy brown hair in pigtails that had been carefully braided by her sister. She clutched her sister’s hand even as the strange new environment threatened to overwhelm her. She wished she was back home with the cats and even daddy in a grumpy mood than face all this strangeness.

Selina Kyle went into the orphanage at age eight, her big brown eyes already worldly and her wavy brown hair pulled back into a simple ponytail. She guided her little sister along by the hand and resolved that she could be the only one to love Darcy as Mommy and Daddy should have.

So she did.

* * *

 

 The orphanage wasn’t exactly a rat-warren, but it certainly wasn’t the Taj Mahal; instead of a Miss Hannigan, they had tough old Mrs. Shaner, who looked simultaneously like she was pushing 80 with her cap of white curls and wrinkled face but had the build of a bulldog and took no shenanigans. Gotham City was a rough place, she’d tell the girls in her care, ‘so you gotta toughen up to take care of yesselves.’

They had tried to separate Selina and Darcy, to put Darcy with the younger girls and Selina with the older, but every morning found Darcy curled up in Selina’s arms in the older girl’s narrow twin bottom bunk. It took about a fortnight of this before Mrs. Shaner gave up. She pulled Selina aside. “I ain’t givin’ ya special treatment,” she said, looking down sternly into the girl’s eyes. “I seen so many girls come through here with just the same bad situations, no parents, druggie parents, deadbeats. You and your sister ain’t abused or the like, and you’ll do a lot better here than some. So I’s let ya keep her with you, but in the older room she’s yer responsibility. You don’t want it, you make her stay with the younger kids. Y’hear me?”

Selina nodded. “Yes, Mrs. Shaner,” she answered politely. “May we get her things from the younger kids’ room?”

“Ah, bless you for yer manners. Yeah, you go ahead and get her stuff and I’ll set you up a better sleeping situation. We may not have new beds, but all my girls will have beds, if I have to strangle every state inspector that comes in here…” she wandered away, muttering. Selina felt nothing but relief, and turning to skip back down the hallway, excitement. They couldn’t keep her from Darcy!

* * *

 

 Darcy was six years old and she’d been in the orphanage for two years. She had vague memories of living in a house, with her parents, but most of her memories of them were fuzzy, more feeling than form. Selina had pictures of them, their parents, and they were tucked in a Nancy Drew hardback book she kept in her pillowcase. Their bunk bed was the whole world for the Kyle sisters; Selina on the top, Darcy on the bottom. Darcy liked it best when Selina let her sheet hang down to create a fort on the bottom; that was the best. Darcy had just started first grade, while Selina was already in fourth grade. Gotham Public wasn’t going to be winning any state-wide awards for their teaching skills, but Darcy didn’t know that, and loved going to school. Selina helped her with her homework – but then, Selina had always tried to teach her the work she was doing. In Darcy’s opinion, Selina was the best big sister in the whole wide world and there wasn’t any foster family that was going to be better, so she would just live here with Selena until they were big enough to move out. Like, big like Mrs. Shaner, so nobody could tell them they couldn’t. And maybe have cats. Darcy had fond memories of cats.

“Selina?” Darcy asked, lying on her back across her bed, her legs up the wall and her head off the side. Selina was sitting on the floor cross-legged, a book open on the floor and her notebook in her lap.

“Yeah, Darcy?” she asked, still writing.

“When we grow up and live in a house again, we can have cats, right?”

Selina paused in her careful writing, and looked up at Darcy. “You want cats?”

Darcy nodded. Her head was starting to funny, as it did when she hung upside down too much. She rolled over and backed up, elbows digging into the edge of the mattress.  “We had cats before. My favorite was a black one. Wasn’t it?” She had dreams of a long-haired cat, soft and fuzzy and purring in her lap. It had to be a good memory, because there were no cats in the orphanage. No pets allowed.

“That was Bella. And yeah, we can have as many cats as you want. But first I gotta finish this homework.”

“Kayyyy,” Darcy said, looking down at her sister’s careful handwriting. “If I practice my letters will you check them after?”

“Sure,” Selina said, a small smile tucked into the corner of her lips.

“Awesome!” Darcy exclaimed, scrambling to get off the bed to her hand-me-down backpack.

* * *

 

 Darcy wasn’t sure what Selina had done wrong, but she kept getting called into Mrs. Shaner’s office and coming back with a scowl. Darcy tried to cheer her up, but Selina pretended that nothing was the matter. Then one day Selina got called to the office in school, and she wasn’t in line for the bus. Darcy tried to go to the office to wait for her, but the secretary sent her back to the bus to return to the orphanage. It was the first night Darcy had ever gone to sleep without somebody in the bunk above her, and she wept bitterly and quietly into her pillow, wide-eyed into the wee hours of the morning with fear.

The next morning, Mrs. Shaner pulled her into the office and told her that Selina had gone to a place called “juvenile hall” for a little bit, for “irresponsible and reckless behavior.” Whatever that meant. Darcy went to school in a daze, tired and lethargic and just longing for normal. And then back at the orphanage, Mrs. Shaner was waiting for her in the hall. “Darcy, come with me,” she said, holding out a gnarled but strong hand. Hesitant, because Mrs. Shaner rarely showed affection, Darcy took her hand and followed her to her office.

Tom and Linda Lewis were the nicest adults Darcy had met outside of her teacher, Ms. Simon. Even nicer than her kindergarten teacher, Mr. McNulty. They were something called “foster parents,” or, as some of the older girls called them, “fake parents.” They were older, and Tom’s dark brown hair was shot through with silver; he had a kind smile, a kind of bigger nose, and green eyes. Linda was short, with blonde hair going grey at the temples, blue eyes and silver wire-frame glasses.

Darcy didn’t want fake parents. She wanted her sister. She told them as much.

The Lewises told her to think about them, and they’d like to visit her again, if she’d allow. She wasn’t mad enough to not be polite, so she said that would be okay. They left, and Darcy skipped doing her homework to sit on her bunk and stare out the tiny window at the red brick building next door.

She wondered what she did wrong, that first they’d take away her parents, and now they’d take away her sister.

* * *

 

 The orange vinyl chairs in the visiting room were squeaky and uncomfortable, and Darcy sat as straight as possible. The caseworker, Mr. Hileman, waited in the corner, and Darcy’s tummy clenched uncomfortably.  She felt like there were bees inside or something. Which was silly because she was finally about to see her sister for the first time in two weeks. She swung her legs idly, since her feet weren’t anywhere near the floor, and observed that her sneakers were almost worn out again.

A creaky hinge made her look up, and she flew across the room to wrap her arms around Selina.

“Hey, Darce, it’s okay, it’s okay,” Selina said, hugging her fiercely back, until Darcy’s feet weren’t on the floor anymore. “I gotcha, I gotcha.”

“I missed you,” Darcy whimpered into her sister’s t-shirt. “Like, more than the world. More than chocolate.”

“I missed you too. So much,” Selina whispered back. She loosened her hold and let Darcy’s feet touch the floor again, and Darcy reluctantly let go.

“They want me to go with foster parents,” Darcy blurted out.

Selina looked unhappy. “They told me,” she said, and then, “I think you should.”

“What?!” Darcy shrieked. “No! NO! I’m not going without you! I wanna stay here with you!”

“Darcy, you know you can’t stay here,” Mr. Hileman interjected, kindly.

“You need a mom and dad, Darce,” Selina implored.

“No! No. I’m not going with them unless you come with me!” Darcy yelled, stomping her foot. She didn’t care that Mrs. Shaner said she was too big a girl to stomp her feet like a toddler. Selina was being dumb. So was Mr. Hileman.

Selina knelt down in front of Darcy and grabbed her hands. “Darce, listen to me. I gotta stay here for a bit, and I don’t want you at the orphanage all alone. You should go. Maybe if I’m very good, they’ll let me come later.”

Darcy’s eyes were crying. “But I don’t wanna leave you every again,” she whispered.

“I never want to leave you, you hear me? EVER,” Selina whispered fiercely, squeezing her hands. “But I want you to be happy. It’ll just be for a little while.”

“Promise?” Darcy asked, lips wobbling.

Selina gave her an answering unstable smile. “Promise.”

* * *

 

 Darcy Kyle went into the orphanage at age four, all big blue eyes and wavy brown hair in pigtails that had been carefully braided by her sister.

Darcy Lewis left the orphanage at age six, big blue eyes worried but hopeful and her brown hair carefully brushed out with all her skill. In her backpack she had not only her own but all of her sister’s possessions, ostensibly holding onto them until Selina could join her.


End file.
